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CULTURE

Sandals

The crappiest shoes ever

Simon Goss
Ellemeno
Published in
11 min readSep 6, 2024

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© Athena Sandrini — pexels-athena-2961989

I hate them. Always have. I’ve worn them most of my life for mercifully brief periods each year, but I can only remember a few pairs that I have ever been comfortable in, and even then, not for long. Here are the memorable ones, in chronological order.

T-Bars (good)

Start Rite T-Bars for children. © Creative Commons

My first pair of “sandals” were not really that at all, I suppose, but I will suggest a definition here that any shoe you wear without socks could arguably be called a sandal.

This narrow view comes from a strict set of sartorial rules instilled in me by my mother. Along with the sandal definition, she also imposed a set time of year to remove my otherwise permanent vest (don’t cast a clout ‘til May is out) and taught me to never wear navy with black (pretty wise, that one, to be fair). She insisted that pyjamas were only to be worn downstairs if I was ill (something I still abide by — also wise, as I sleep in the nude and have done for many years).

Oh, and she also maintained that brown suede shoes were somehow evidence of a dubious character (I rebelled against this one a long time ago, though I still…

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Ellemeno
Ellemeno

Published in Ellemeno

A literary journal dedicated to the exploration of life, memoir, culture, travel, and writing.

Simon Goss
Simon Goss

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